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Why the 2014 Election Wasn’t a Conservative Wave

Pundits who claim that the last election was some sort of conservative wave have to explain why every single ballot initiative went the way liberals wanted.

It’s true — from getting drug addicts out of jail to raising minimum wage to supporting reproductive rights to marijuana legalization, the liberal view won even in the reddest of states.

Republicans vote in greater number than Democrats even though Democrats outnumber them, and that allows Republicans to win more than they should. But as I have pointed out before, the liberal view on issues is the majority view, and even Republicans agree with some of them. These are not radical, outlandish, way-off-to-the-left positions. They are what most Americans want.

Democrats have done an absolutely terrible job of convincing voters of that. The last election found Democrats running away from popular positions as well as Democratic successes, and as a result, people voted for the real Republican instead of the fake one.

There are other reasons the Democrats fared poorly in the last election even while their issues won. (It was the off-year election at the end of a President’s term which is always bad for the incumbent party; more Democratic seats were up for grabs; Gerrymandering made it more difficult for Democrats; Citizens United allowed for huge business donations to Republicans; Republican voter suppression was successful…) But things will be different in 2016, where there is a Presidential race and Democrats do vote.

In a future blog, I’ll show you an electoral map and point out how amazingly difficult it will be for the Republicans to win.

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